1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cloud computing and more particularly to secure distribution of virtualized storage in a cloud computing environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cloud computing is a model of service delivery for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources including computer communications networks, network bandwidth, servers, processing, memory, storage, applications, virtual machines, and services, that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or interaction with a provider of the service. This cloud model may include at least five characteristics, at least three service models, and at least four deployment models. Characteristics of cloud computing include on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and measured service.
Cloud computing enables several different service models such as the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, the Platform as a Service (PaaS) model, and the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model. Cloud computing itself can be deployed according to a number of deployment models including the private cloud model in which the cloud infrastructure is operated solely for an organization, the community cloud model in which the cloud infrastructure is shared by several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns, the public cloud model in which the cloud infrastructure is made available to the general public or a large industry group and is owned by an organization selling cloud services, and the hybrid cloud model in which the cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load-balancing between clouds).
A cloud computing environment is service oriented with a focus on statelessness, low coupling, modularity, and semantic interoperability. At the heart of cloud computing is an infrastructure of a network of interconnected nodes. In this regard, a typical cloud computing environment includes one or more cloud computing nodes with which local computing devices used by cloud consumers may communicate. The nodes communicate with one another and can be grouped together physically or virtually, in one or more networks, such as private, community, public, or hybrid clouds as described hereinabove, or a combination thereof. As such, the cloud computing environment can offer infrastructure, platforms and software as services for which a cloud consumer does not need to maintain resources on a local computing device. As technology evolves, the infrastructure, platforms and software as services is expected to evolve as well.
A cloud represents an excellent way to run machines in a more optimal way; however, a cloud also presents some risks. One risk is the fact that the cloud storage provided is shared storage. In this sense, the cloud storage is not managed by the owner of the virtual machines but instead the cloud storage is managed by a cloud administrator. One concern of the virtual machine owner is that the disks which run on the storage are not secure from tampering by third parties. Consequently, these disks can be copied and dissected without the virtual machine owner's knowledge. As a result, any data contained with the virtual machine is liable to tampering and data loss.